New retail is here

​​Many new retail stores struggle to profit within their first two years due to a lack of community building. Established brands are exploring physical retail channels to navigate the rising costs of acquiring customers online. With these key problems in mind, the DeStore team developed an entirely new approach to running retail stores— one born on the blockchain but brought to life in the physical world.

DAO inspired. DAO owned. DAO run. The team employed the structure and philosophy of a DAO to create a system whereby communities of owners share decision-making and collaboratively agree on a retail store's direction. Ownership is gained by purchasing an NFT, following a strict vetting process. Owners then receive the right to vote on the store's direction, such as which products to stock, when to distribute profits, and how to make improvements. Members of the community can use the DeStore dApp to stay on top of in-store activity via live stream, check performance, and view and vote on the DOA's lasted proposals.

DeStore partnered with Zypsy to create branding that would capture their community-driven mission and philosophy, and introduce their audience to new retail. We needed to make the worlds of web3 and retail collide to deliver a website that was as unique as DeStore’s solution.

With a focus on simplicity and elegance, our design team drew inspiration from the world of fashion to create a unique font that is editorial in style but feels equally web3. Linking back to DeStore's passion for fashion, the font would feel right at home on the cover of Harper's Bazaar or Vogue. Throughout the website, our design uses negative space to heighten the minimal, fashion-like aesthetic, while flashes of pastel colors produce a sense of warmth and invitation. To convey the brand's position as a physical rather than an online outlet, imagery of their stores and their locations were used throughout the homepage and brought to life through dynamic animations.

In designing the logo mark, the team again reflected upon the notion of a physical store born from digital means. To represent the collision of retail and web3, the letter D was abstracted in digital style, but formed to create the appearance of a shop window. Like DeStore, the logo represents the coming together of two worlds and the emergence of something altogether new.

Upon opening, the physical DeStore generated a flurry of media activity and public interest. Featured by media outlets from Bloomberg to Yahoo, New Retail has captured people’s imagination and demonstrated the desire for a new way of running retail shops.
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With new members joining the community daily, the appetite for shared ownership is growing fast.